One Year to an Organized Work Life: From Your Desk to Your Deadlines, the Week-by-Week Guide to Eliminating Office Stress for Good [Paperback]

Regina Leeds (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2, 2008

For many of us, the workplace is our second home...and it’s just as messy. But who would you be if you felt totally in control of your schedule, your workload, and your career? One Year to an Organized Work Life is a unique week-by-week, month-by-month system to streamline your workspace, take the anxiety out of your job, and have more time for what you love.

Using her unique “Zen organizing” approach, professional organizer Regina Leeds shows readers the simple steps to get more done in less time—from clearing your desk and organizing your files to dealing with email and making meetings efficient. Regina helps you tackle the sources of stress, disorganization, and time management difficulties so that over time, life becomes easier, not overwhelming.

Whether you’re looking to advance your career, balance your work and family, or just deal with the daily deluge of paperwork, One Year to an Organized Work Life will help you spend less time at the office and go home happy.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In the natural follow-up to her bestselling "Zen organizing" primer One Year to an Organized Life, Leeds presents a comprehensive guide to office efficiency. Like its predecessor, this volume is a kind of self-help boot camp, complete with month-by-month and week-by-week guides, with themes ("January: Start Fresh," "March: Stop Paper Pileups"), habits ("Make your bed," "Be grateful," "Say no") and clearly-defined weekly exercises, including tips for dealing with everyday tasks like checking email and booking business travel. Leeds also makes them most of a helpful (if familiar) three-step "Magic Formula" for approaching clutter of any kind: "1. Eliminate 2. Categorize 3. Organize." Some readers may balk at her low-tech solutions: her section on calendar-keeping focuses almost exclusively on the pen-and-paper variety, and she suggests a highly detailed filing system for paper. Still, highly motivated readers should find plenty of smart, straightforward and rewarding ways to eliminate chaos from their work lives.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Shape, 12/08
“Use this guide to organize your office—and mind.”

Tucson Citizen, 1/8/09
“This guide provides the structure and the time frame to achieve the impossible: organization.”

Publishers Weekly (web exclusive), 2/2/09
“Readers should find plenty of smart, straightforward and rewarding ways to eliminate chaos from their work lives.”

Unclutterer.com, 3/24/09
“A practical resource for those in need of a complete organizational overhaul and for others who could use improvement in a few problematic areas.”

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Lifelong Books; 1 edition (December 2, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738212792
• ISBN-13: 978-0738212791
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #130,557 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Brooklyn, New York is my hometown. I live most of the year now in Los Angeles, California. There are positive and negative things about both cities but my heart is always in New York City. I've been traveling the world since I was 17. I have my maternal grandmother's wanderlust. I've been to China twice and hope to return in 3 years. I want to take the train from Beijing to Tibet. How's that for an adventure? My favorite country to visit has to be Morocco. It's exotic and timeless. And of course I collect camels so I felt right at home!

When I was five years old, I knew two things for sure: I could write and I wanted to be an actress. I have always loved medicine, however, and had expressed an interest in surgery. Imagine my parents surprise when I announced that acting was more important than surgery to me. I don't think they ever recovered! When my fifth book "One Year to an Organized Life" became a New York Times best seller, I was so sorry my parents weren't alive. At last an accomplishment they would have understood! It wasn't easy having an only child as unconventional as I.

I was a professional actress for many years. I had the time of my life. One day i realized that I wanted to do something that would more fully be my own. As an actor you perform the words that someone else has written. And someone else directs...and someone else produces...it's a collaboration. Organizing was my gift to my clients. When I conducted seminars, I was the producer, writer, director and actor all rolled into one. In a unique way, it was a more fulfilling experience.

In all of my books I tell stories about myself as teaching tools. I hope you'll take some time to learn more about me and the art of getting organized. I call my system 'Zen Organizing.' You don't have to do anything foreign to be Zen Organized. You just have to have a deep desire to fulfill yourself...because that's what an organized environment does for you.

I invite you to read one of my books and learn more about me and Zen Organizing. Write to me...I promise to respond!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My favorite book on work organization, February 2, 2010

By 

Keith Campbell "Reverend Keith" (Bay Area, California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: One Year to an Organized Work Life: From Your Desk to Your Deadlines, the Week-by-Week Guide to Eliminating Office Stress for Good (Paperback)

One Year to an Organized Work Life by Regina Leeds. I had previously reviewed two other books by Regina Leeds (the "Zen" Organizer) . Those were One Year to an Organized Life and One Year to an Organized Financial Life. Since both were excellent, I was really looking forward to the middle book in the series, dedicated to organizing your work life. After all, I spend a lot of time at work, and the consequences of being disorganize at work can be even more serious than falling to pieces at home.

I was not disappointed. This is a wonderful book on workplace organization - but even more, on integrating your work life and your personal life seamlessly. As with her other "one-year" books, Regina takes what could be a daunting subject and makes it manageable by breaking it down into easy weekly goals for a one-year gradual makeover. Follow the program and you end up with a complete organizational makeover for your work life. You can pick up the book and start the program at any time, as most of the assignments are not prerequisites of each other.

Each month also includes a work "habit of the month" and a HOME "habit of the month". What's really amazing is the range of topics covered in this book. It's not just another book on time management and paperwork. Sure, there are excellent chapters on those topics, but there are also a lot of topics that you don't often see discussed. How to pack for a business trip. How to prepare your office to run smoothly while you're on vacation. How to integrate your holiday plans with your work responsibilities. How to organize your computer, laptop and other virtual environments.

As usual, Regina devotes considerable time not simply to the mechanics of organizing, but to your mental attitudes. How to set goals, understand and overcome procrastination, and how to balance your family and work responsibilities. Even how to plan your vacation. She never forgets that the purpose of organization is not simply for it's own sake, but to make our lives better. She also keeps an eye out for the particular needs of the working woman, which is a topic where some other books fall short.

You can get excellent specialized books in any of the several areas Regina covers in this book - from goal setting to filing and paperwork. But for a well-constructed plan to overhaul every aspect of your work organization, it's hard to beat this book. Give Regina a year and she'll make your work life sparkle.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not to be Missed, August 17, 2009

By 

J. Post - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: One Year to an Organized Work Life: From Your Desk to Your Deadlines, the Week-by-Week Guide to Eliminating Office Stress for Good (Paperback)

Follow Regina Leed's advice, and you will create miracles, even in the smallest of office spaces. I reduced the clutter in my small office cubicle and ended up relieving my mind of extraneous stuff too. Regina's empathetic, personal approach and keen appreciation for the positive power of new habits and affirmations made me feel that she was right beside me. Although it is written in a month by month format, don't let that stop you from jumping into Zen Organizing at any time of the year. What a delight to open a drawer or go to a shelf and have just what you need right at your command. A revelation for a person used to piles of papers and heaps of books everywhere. The same approach will work miracles at home too.

Much more than a simple "how to" book. Emphasis is on understanding behavior before starting new actions and sticking to newly created habits.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Organized Work Life, January 5, 2009

By 

Grace L. Walker (Orange Ca USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: One Year to an Organized Work Life: From Your Desk to Your Deadlines, the Week-by-Week Guide to Eliminating Office Stress for Good (Paperback)

This is a great book. As Director of a a busy physical therapy practice, I find that that is easy to become distracted and overwhelmed with paper. This book provides the insights and the tools of organization to overcome office stress. I highly recommend this book.